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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28227108">Heal Thyself</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifeisyetfair/pseuds/lifeisyetfair'>lifeisyetfair</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Background Aragorn/Arwen - Freeform, F/M, Gandalf Meddles, Gen, References to Torture</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 15:53:43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,427</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28227108</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifeisyetfair/pseuds/lifeisyetfair</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Elrond is grieving. Gandalf has an idea.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Celebrían/Elrond Peredhel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>51</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Heal Thyself</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/thearrogantemu/gifts">thearrogantemu</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It did not grieve him that he could not avenge Celebrían. It grieved him that he could not heal her. All his skill could not make Middle-Earth bearable to her after her suffering, and she departed for Valinor.<br/>
He might have gone with her, if she had not expressly forbidden it.<br/>
“You are needed here,” she said, and it was true. The Shadow was growing, and there were many in need of healing. Many whom he could help, as he had not been able to help her.<br/>
“At least take Arwen with you,” he begged. Even though she was going to a place of healing, he did not like the idea of her going alone, separated from her family for long ages.<br/>
“But then who will be your heir?”</p><p>	Elladan and Elrohir had chosen the path of the warrior, in memory of their mother’s torment at the hands of the orcs. In memory of what had stolen her from them. Elrond had taken that path once. But now he had a different task.<br/>
You had to choose one or the other, among the elves. They were not like the kings of men, who could both heal and destroy. Over their long lifetimes, the elves might do both, but not at the same time. And it took a long time to build up the knowledge to be a healer. Longer than it took to learn to kill.<br/>
Celebrían was right. The unwarlike Arwen, who had never asked to go with her brothers on their raids, was his only hope of passing down his learning and his skill. She would be his legacy. </p><p>	“I thought you would never ask,” Arwen said when he requested her help with a patient.<br/>
“You don’t mind? You wouldn’t rather be fighting?” He wondered if he’d misread her entirely.<br/>
“No,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to learn, to heal.”<br/>
“But you never asked.” His daughter troubled him, sometimes. She was too passive, too watchful. Like she was waiting for something. But what it was, he didn’t know. </p><p>	She learned quickly, his observant daughter. For a few centuries, they worked together, doing their best to heal the wounds Sauron’s servants left behind. He could not help but feel they were losing, could not help revisiting the War of the Last Alliance. If only Isildur had not…if only he had stopped, had persuaded Isildur…<br/>
The way that war had ended convinced him they could not win by force alone. And he had seen, in his childhood, what happened when force remained even after hope of victory was gone. No, he would not take Maedhros’s path. He had put away the sword and become the healer, the counselor, the conciliator. Someone who would hold the world together, no matter how Sauron rent it.<br/>
And though the separation from Celebrían had torn the fabric of his world almost in two, his world had been torn in two before. When he had been separated first from his parents, and later from his brother Elros. He had survived being left behind. He always would. </p><p>	He did not expect Arwen to be the next to leave him. The choice of the Half-Elven had passed to her, as to her brothers, but he never doubted they would choose as he had. Especially knowing what had become of Elros’s proud legacy. That was the trouble with being human—you had no control. No way of knowing, even, when others squandered what you had left them.<br/>
But maybe that was better than this. Arwen was standing before him, proud and tall, and telling him she would throw it all away. Her learning. Her life. For a man. For love.<br/>
He knew she would never love again, when Aragorn was dead. But there was more to life than romance, wasn’t there? She didn’t have to die just because Aragorn would. He had stayed in Middle-Earth all these years, apart from Celebrían, doing his duty. He hadn’t run to join her.<br/>
But Arwen’s eyes glittered in a way he had never seen, as if this was what she had been waiting for all her life. He saw his brother in her and turned away. He could not look at her. It hurt too much.<br/>
“I thought you wanted to be a healer,” he said.<br/>
“You were a warrior once. Then you changed your mind.”<br/>
“Arwen, if you do this, you will never be able to change your mind! You can’t…” He sensed he would get nowhere with threats. “You were supposed to be my heir,” he said instead. “Where will all that learning go?”<br/>
“I don’t know.” She hesitated. “Perhaps a time will come when our skills are no longer so needed. A time beyond the Shadow.”<br/>
“A time when Sauron is defeated, and Gondor is restored, and your love rules with you by his side?” But he could not scoff at her dreams. Not when they had once been his.<br/>
“The latter at least may happen, and we may live to see it.”<br/>
Aragron, king of Gondor? His foster-son had seemed more than capable of it. But it was hard to see him clearly now that he was destroying Elrond’s last hope. He had lost his parents, his foster-fathers, his brother, and his wife. He should not have to lose his only daughter, his heir, as well.<br/>
“If he is what we believe he is,” he said as gently as possible, “that may be. And at that time, I will release you from all your obligations here in Rivendell. But not before then.”<br/>
Let him hold on to her a little longer, if nothing else.</p><p>	Sauron is defeated not by force but by the plan hatched in Elrond’s council. He does not feel the joy he should, the joy his children feel at revenge for their mother’s torture. He does not even feel the joy of having been right.<br/>
The world is made whole, but he is not.<br/>
Arwen is mortal now, and the skill of her hands is greatly diminished. He does not have time to start again with a new apprentice. And even if an apprentice could be replaced, a daughter cannot. He will have to watch her grow old and die, while he remains. </p><p>	It is Mithrandir who notices.<br/>
“You seem in need of healing, Master Elrond. These past weeks have not been easy for you.”<br/>
Elrond almost laughs. He is the greatest healer in Middle-Earth, though Mithrandir surpasses him in raw power. To whom can he go to be cured of this grief? All through the wedding, he was holding on grimly, and he will be holding on until the end of time.<br/>
“Where can a healer go when his own powers fail him, Mithrandir? Who can help me now? I should be helped already.” His grief is selfish, while the world is being renewed. But it is not the less grief for all that.<br/>
Mithrandir is still smoking his infuriating pipeweed. Elrond supposes it will not actually shorten his life.<br/>
“Your wife thought the same, once. That she should be healed already. That by remaining unhealed, she made things worse for you.”<br/>
He does not want to be reminded of that time, and tells Mithrandir so.<br/>
“It is a sad story. No power of mine could heal her.”<br/>
“And yet,” Mithrandir says. “She is healed.”<br/>
Elrond stops avoiding his gaze. There is no mockery in it, only compassion.<br/>
“There is a place where you may go to be helped in your grief. And your wife is waiting for you there. Take the ship for Valinor. This is not only a time of endings.”<br/>
He was born here in Middle-Earth, and does not quite believe in Valinor, a place out of legend, the place his parents disappeared to, and his wife. But now he sees his foolishness. Not all those who parted are lost.<br/>
“We will go together, for we have long been friends,” says Mithrandir. “To the far green country, to the home of the Valar.”<br/>
It is not the Valar whom he seeks there, but Elrond does not say that.<br/>
“Are there not still those here in need of healing?” he protests, but it is a weak one. After so long living for duty, he has not much left to offer.<br/>
“You are one of them now.” Mithrandir puts a hand on his shoulder. “You have done enough, and it is time to go home.”<br/>
He still wants to object—this is his home. He does not.<br/>
“She is waiting for you,” Mithrandir says, and that settles it.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This came from a conversation with thearrogantemu about Elrond's healing in terms of Elven gender roles, Arwen as his heir, and also whether there's an Elvish Hippocratic Oath. It turned out to be about everyone Elrond has lost or is losing, and how everyone needs support and healing.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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